Thump,
             thump,
                         thump,
            faltered
        breath
          painful
              inhales
                 but still
                                                         ­        life.
It’s
            my
                  only
comfort.
                          
   ­                      Just
          making
                         sure
                                 he’s
                                                     still
                                     alive.

      I couldn’t
                  imagine
                       never
                 hearing
that

               heartbeat
          ever


  *again.

"You know what makes every story pretty?" he asked.

"What?"

"Unpredictability. One day, I don't even know how your hands feel; the next, they are all I ever want to hold."

"You know what makes unpredictability pretty?"

"What?" he asked.

*"That your every syncopated heartbeat is my love story."

I woke up this day
   and searched for you by my bedside.

I didn't find you there.

I found you in my chest--
   beating.

My head against your chest
I love the sound of your heart
Those soft thumps going
Thump,thump
Thump, thump thump
It's music to my ears
I feel calm
when I hear
Your heartbeat
under my ear .  
Mariah j. Young

I don't want to scrub your laugh off of my skin
that it's been embedded in
along with the kisses you planted on my lips
that one day might be bruised
and used to cry for your love
to return to my veins
I don't want to write poetry about our breakup
I want to write poetry about how your eyes love me
and how your hands encasing mine
are the missing puzzle piece
still making my heart skip a beat
when your thumb traces mine
I want to write about all the
demons and angels
withing ourselves and others
and how we are both
mountains and sea
and moon and sun
and how we love each other
endlessly
regardless of if my poetry
can show it or not
I don't want to scrub you out of my bones
I don't want the thought of you to feel like sandpaper
I don't want to shiver
and cringe at the thought of
your love touching me
I don't want my teeth to shatter and my skin to raise
at the thought of your lips
I don't want to cry over wanting you
I want to have you underneath my fingernails and freckles
I want to hold your soul
within my arms
and never let it go
I want to kiss your
every emotion
hopefully healing some wounds
and I'll kiss the scars too
I want to write about how
my love has been
with you since the beginning of time,
how our atoms were created near each other,
that we are from the same star
I wan't to write about how
even in another life
we would find each other
I want to write about your everything
and how I'll love you past my best ability
and sometimes it breaks me
like I'm a piece of glass
from the jar
encasing our hearts together
until maybe one day
they stop beating
I don't want the rhythm
of our heartbeats
to change or stop
but it might
and my cuts will not heal
from the broken glass I call
my heart
but we might stay intact
like the Gods or the stars planned
and if not,
just know that
I love you,
simply

When you feel like I'm starting to slip away, ask these unmade sheets how many times I've said I never want to see you go over eyes that flood tears. They'd tell you. Perhaps the warmth of my skin has lingered on its fibers. Wrap it around your body; feel my embrace.

When you feel like I'm getting cold, place your ears on these walls of white and eavesdrop to every remnant echo of burning, unsaid "I love you." They'd tell you. Find solace in the whispers of my love, in every heartbeat these walls would reverberate.

I wish you don't, but when you feel like I've never truly loved you, read every word I wrote to every inch of my red notebook. They'd tell you. I left my heart there... every single tiny crumb.

Next time, I hope you fall in love with someone who always chats back and never lets you fall asleep thinking you're unwanted.

I hope you fall in love with someone who holds your hand during the scary parts of horror movies.

I hope you fall in love with someone who sees galaxies in your eyes and can write sonnets about them, and hears music in your heartbeat and laugh.

I hope you fall in love with someone who tickles you and make you smile on hard days and on easy ones.

But beyond all that, I hope you fall in love with someone who will never leave you behind and will never take you for granted, someone who will stand by you when you're right and stand by you when you're wrong, someone who has seen you at your worst and has loved you still.

I hope you fall in love with someone who kisses you in the rain and hugs you in the cold and wouldn't have you any other way..

missing him is the prettiest torture;
a disease on which only he possesses the cure
now I'm starting to forget how to touch
this illness had infected me too much
mayhem in my mind, hear my soul screams
I cannot wake up with him in my dreams
cause every part of me is incomplete
I belong nowhere but next to his heartbeat

Thump,
           thump,
                    thump,
           the soft,
steady
           beat
                      of a drum.
                                 Calm,
                                            gentle
                                 measured,
                      exhales.
Deep
           throbbing,
                      rhythmic
                                 perfect.
                      Consistent
                      rise
           and fall,
the intake
           of August air,
release
           of pain
and grief.